


Questions Hanging, Answers Unseen

by strwbrryklly



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Season/Series 03, more like hurt very little comfort but anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 03:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20575340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strwbrryklly/pseuds/strwbrryklly
Summary: “I’m sorry,” Entrapta says for the thousandth time, face downcast. “I…I thought I was making progress. I thought you’d left me behind. I thought…I thought Hordak was my friend. And Catra, too.”Adora doesn’t know what to say.“I…I understand. I used to think Catra was my friend, too.”





	Questions Hanging, Answers Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> hiya!! this is my first she-ra fic ever, and also my first fic i've written in general in a loooong time, so i'm excited to get back into writing again!!
> 
> i may have screwed up the canon a little bit (i don't remember what happened to entrapta and shadow weaver at the end of s3) but then again, this is fanfiction, so screwing up canon is kind of the point.
> 
> not beta read, if there's any small grammatical mistakes please let me know!!

A few days after the portal is destroyed, Entrapta arrives on Bright Moon’s doorstep, with an overwhelming abundance of technology and information from the Fright Zone.

Eyes red-rimmed and wide, she starts apologising profusely, relaying to the princesses what happened after they left – Catra had threatened Entrapta with a one-way trip to Beast Island as punishment for her ‘betrayal’, and Hordak had wordlessly agreed with her request. Only Scorpia had sympathy – enough so that she allowed Entrapta to escape, and take any information she had about First Ones technology and portals with her.

Upon finishing her story, Perfuma steps forward to take Entrapta’s shaking hand and bring her into a hug. The others follow one by one – Mermista, Spinnerella, Netossa, even Frosta, resting her head on Entrapta’s hip. Adora hesitates, taking a quick glance at Glimmer, standing away from the rest with Bow by her side. She hasn’t said much in the past few days, only talking to Castaspella about her transition into becoming the ruler of Bright Moon, and occasionally visiting Shadow Weaver, once again locked in the kingdom’s luxurious ‘dungeon’.

They separate, and Glimmer shoots a half-hearted ‘welcome back’ in Entrapta’s direction, before turning and walking away. Everyone watches her leave, before Entrapta turns to Adora.

“I'm sorry,” she says for the thousandth time, face downcast. “I…I thought I was making progress. I thought you’d left me behind. I thought…I thought Hordak was my friend. And Catra, too.”

Adora doesn’t know what to say. She wants to respond with her own apologies - _I’m sorry I didn’t go back for you. I’m sorry for making you feel like we didn’t care. _She can’t get the words out; a lump of guilt caught in her throat. She had done the same thing to Entrapta that she did to Catra – she left them behind.

Catra’s distorted voice rings through her mind. _It’s all your fault._

She coughs.

“I…I understand. I used to think Catra was my friend, too.”

Catra echoes through her head again. _Just a friend?_

She rubs her eyes, tears threatening to spill over, before giving Entrapta another hug.

Bow watches her, expressionless, but says nothing.

\--

Later that night, a knock sounds softly on Adora’s door, her whirlwind of thoughts coming to a halt.

“Come in.”

The door creaks open and Bow’s face appears around it, peeking in. “Everything okay in here?”

Adora sits up in her bed, tearing her eyes away from the blank ceiling. “I guess it is. I just…I don’t know what to do, now.”

She continues as Bow makes his way to sit beside her on her bed. “I don’t know how to comfort Glimmer, to help Entrapta, to plan another attack on the Horde. I feel so…” She gestures wildly, searching through words in the air. Not even the simplest of thoughts are coming easily to her now, smothered by Catra’s taunting. “Lost.”

Bow wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I know,” he murmurs, “It’s hard for all of us, too. But we don’t expect you to have all the answers.”

“But I should!” she snaps, throwing herself off the bed and charging to the other side of the room in a burst of impatient energy. “I should know what to do! I’m She-Ra, I’m _meant _to know the answers! That’s the reason why I’m here; it’s my destiny!”

The initial shock on Bow’s face from Adora’s outburst slowly melts away into sadness, and he stands to approach her again. “You’ve done so much for us already, Adora,” he soothes, tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve saved us too many times to count. You stopped Catra from destroying Etheria. You deserve a break, and time to collect your thoughts.”

_‘Deserve.’ _Catra cackles, and Adora winces. _What you _deserved _was to be stuck between time and space, alone forever. Now Angella’s there instead and you’re here, wasting time._

“I should be doing something,” she says, eyes downcast. “Hordak wants a portal, and he’s going to keep trying until he gets it, with or without Entrapta. He could be planning an attack at any moment. And Catra…”

Bow’s eyebrows knit together. “What about Catra?”

_Yes, what about me?_

“I…” Adora trails off. Bow only knows Catra as a Horde soldier, as a girl who wants nothing more than to see the princesses destroyed. He’s never seen her early in the morning, shaking Adora awake with her eyes sparkling. He’s never seen her cry, after one of Shadow Weaver’s brutal punishments. He’s never seen her watching the sky above the Fright Zone, her hand in Adora’s, smiling. He’s never seen her the way only Adora has – one who seems light-hearted and careless but actually loves fiercely, with a passion hidden under many layers but still strong and unbroken.

Bow squeezes her shoulder in encouragement, and Adora relents.

“Catra hates me. She’s doing all of this because I was her only friend, and I left her behind. And she’ll do anything to see me fail.”

There’s a pause so thick that Adora thinks she can choke on it, as Bow collects his thoughts. What he says next she doesn’t expect.

“Was that what Catra was to you? Just a friend?”

The ghost of Catra’s lips press against her own, leaving Adora’s skin tingling.

“No.”

Bow lets out a low hum, and with her fingers rising to rub the memory of Catra off her mouth, Adora continues.

“I don’t really know what we were, Bow. Relationships weren’t exactly normal in the Horde – but she wasn’t just a friend. I didn’t care for her like I did for Kyle, or Lonnie, or Rogelio. There was something else there.” She sighs, turning to meet Bow’s saddened gaze. “And I didn’t stay there long enough to find out what that was.”

The pressure of Bow’s hand on her shoulder disappears, and it takes only a second for Catra to crawl back into her mind, tugging at her heartstrings with quiet, ugly words. But only a moment later, Adora finds Bow’s arms around her, warm and loving, and she returns the embrace, tears dripping off her cheeks and soaking into his shoulder.

Bow stills, and Adora tenses with him, preparing for another, inevitable question.

“Do you still care for her that way?”

Adora doesn’t realise how hard she’s been biting the inside of her cheek until the tang of blood washes over her tongue.

_Yes. _Adora’s heart aches.

“I don’t know.”

\--

The next morning, Adora wakes with Bow asleep on a mound of pillows on the floor beside her, and she can’t help but long for Catra, sleeping soundly on the end of her bed like she would in Fright Zone sometimes, climbing silently down from her bunk in the middle of the night and to settle against Adora’s legs. Catra never told Adora why she did it, and in turn, Adora never asked.

She wishes she had, because now those days are long over, and it’s a question that can no longer be answered.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos are really appreciated :D
> 
> if you want to keep up with and support me, follow my twitter and/or tumblr at strwbrryklly!!


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